


The Rose Queen

by Sera_dy_Relandrant



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:00:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sera_dy_Relandrant/pseuds/Sera_dy_Relandrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jape has crowned me the Queen of Thorns. The sword will crown you a queen, Margaery. The Queen of Roses." There were always plots swirling about Highgarden, to wed the loveliest Tyrell Rose to four kings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rose Queen

_Ned was not sure what to make of Renly, with all his_ _friendly ways and easy smiles. A few days past, he had taken Ned aside to show him an exquisite rose gold_ _locket. Inside was a miniature painted in the vivid Myrish style, of a lovely young girl with doe's eyes and a_ _cascade of soft brown hair. Renly had seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when_ _Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid was Loras Tyrell's sister Margaery,_ _he'd confessed, but there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. "No," Ned had told him, bemused. Could_ _it be that Lord Renly, who looked so like a young Robert, had conceived a passion for a girl he fancied to be a_ _young Lyanna? That struck him as more than passing queer._

**A Game of Thrones**

* * *

_"We both know your wedding was a mummer's farce. A year ago you were scheming to make the girl one of_   
_Robert's whores."_

_"A year ago I was scheming to make the girl Robert's queen," Renly said, "but what does it matter? The boar_ _got Robert and I got Margaery. You'll be pleased to know she came to me a maid."_

_"In your bed she's like to die that way."_

**A Clash of Kings**

* * *

Lazy ringlets of fawn-brown hair framed her bare white shoulders. Her eyes were a doe's soft woodland brown.

"Ethereal," Renly murmured, ostentatiously to her grandmother. The girl blushed, her ivory cheeks like rose-veined marble. "A true Rose of Highgarden."

Lady Olenna grunted. "The _only_ Rose of Highgarden."

"The rose on the highest branch at least," the fourteen-year-old girl said. She turned her sweetest smile on Renly. His good looks and little gallantries had clearly won her favour - she was even trying her hand at a light flirtation now. But flirtation was an artform and the sweetling was still very green. _More amusing than seductive._

Lady Olenna gave a wry chuckle, as though she could read her granddaughter's thoughts - and his as well. "Winter's frost, Margaery, winter's frost - not summer's rose. Keep that pert tongue and those rosy blushes to yourself - they would not beseem on a maid of the north."

Margaery made a _moue._ "I am not a plain maid of the north."

"We would present you as such to His Majesty," Olenna said. She turned to him. "She is very like Lyanna Stark, is she not, Lord Renly?"

He strolled over to the painter who had been engaged to paint a full-length portrait and a miniature of her. Soft, virginal watercolours. Delicate, melancholy, wintery beauty. Renly hoped that his brother would find her irresistable.

"Her hair... darker," he instructed the painter. "Yes - that shade. Lady Lyanna was darker than you, Lady Margaery."

"Prettier?" she asked.

"By a mile," he said easily.

"By a mile behind, then," she said complacently. She had the pretty pertness of a high-born young girl, used to being made much of.

"A blessing then."

"How so?"

"A blessing that we must make a plain portrait." He grinned at her. "Such beauty as yours could never truly be set forth in paint and paper."

The Queen of Thorns was getting restless. "Plain, pretty, how does it matter? He found the Stark girl pleasing. He will find Margaery pleasing in the same way - she will be an old habit brought back to life. How was she in temperament?"

Renly bowed his head. "I never knew her but they say she was spirited."

"Spirit enough for a dragon's taste, poor child," Lady Olenna snorted. "Spirited. Vivacious - more fire than ice, eh? Margaery, are you listening?"

She had been looking at him. Caught, the poor girl blushed.

Lady Olenna tsked. "No matter. Time enough to paint yourself in northern hues when we leave for King's Landing. How is His Majesty?"

"As handsome as ever," Renly said gallantly. "They say I am very like him, in appearance - as he was in his youth, I mean." _And now, poor soul, he's a sodden wineskin._ It seemed a shame to waste such a lovely young girl on him - but then, she would look all the lovelier with a crown on her head.

"And Her Majesty?" Lady Olenna demanded. "As beautiful as ever? Aging, I suppose, women's looks wear away faster than a man's..."

Renly thought about Cersei and Robert and decided that he wouldn't be so sure about that. "Queen Cersei is the most beautiful of women," he answered honestly. "And Lady Margaery is the fairest of maidens."

Margaery looked disappointed, but her grandmother was pleased. "Good," she said. "Because that is what we will give him - an unplucked rose to remind him of his virgin bride that the dragon snatched from his arms. Let the lioness beware."

 _Let Cersei beware indeed,_ Renly thought, eying Lady Olenna. Margaery had the might of Highgarden and the Tyrells behind her. What was more, she had her grandmother.

* * *

_"My grandson still sits the_ _Iron Throne, but the eunuch has heard whispers from the south. Renly Baratheon wed Margaery Tyrell at_ _Highgarden this fortnight past, and now he has claimed the crown. The bride's father and brothers have bent the_ _knee and sworn him their swords."_

**A Game of Thrones**

* * *

_The crowned stag decorated the king's green velvet tunic as well, worked in gold thread upon his chest; the_ _Baratheon sigil in the colors of Highgarden. The girl who shared the high seat with him was also of Highgarden:_ _his young queen, Margaery, daughter to Lord Mace Tyrell. Their marriage was the mortar that held the great_ _southron alliance together, Catelyn knew. Renly was one-and-twenty, the girl no older than Robb, very pretty, with_ _a doe's soft eyes and a mane of curling brown hair that fell about her shoulders in lazy ringlets. Her smile was_ _shy and sweet._

**A Clash of Kings**

* * *

She was curled up under the cedar trees of the godswood, half-dozing under the dappled light and the leafy shadows cast by the great redwoods. The fragrance of roses lay thick and heavy upon the afternoon air, blown by a damp breeze that betokened the familiar midsummer showers. Megga, Alla and Elinor had been called inside to practice their dancing but she had been permitted to remain out.

"Little sister!"

She felt herself being scooped up and kissed and she giggled, throwing her arms half-sleepily around him. "Loras," she mumbled, as he let her go. She still clung to him. They were wrapped together like lovers. "I didn't know you'd be coming today." She tried to sound petulant.

He tousled her hair fondly. "You'll need to do it up again."

She groaned. "It makes my head ache - all the weight of it... sometimes, when it's so hot I wish I could just shear it short like yours!"

"It'd weigh more if there was a crown perched on top of it." His voice was light, airy, but there was a darker undercurrent.

"I'm blessed that that's been done with," she said, trying to match his tone. Light, gay, airy - Loras was back home. He was back and that was all that mattered. "I never fancied myself a queen - atleast not married to a king like Robert."

"Too old and fat for you?"

She smiled. She wouldn't have dared confess that to anyone but Loras. Was it wrong for her to wish for a handsome prince to carry her away, as the damsels in ministrels' lays were? Was it sinful not to desire an advantageous match when it came at the price of a bloated boar?

He slipped his arm around her waist and they strolled down the godswood. "Would a merry, handsome young king suit you better?"

She darted a quick look at him. "Not-?"

He nodded somberly. "King Renly's entourage is expected tomorrow - I just rode ahead."

 _And so I am to marry my brother's lover._ She fought for words. "Grandmother was pleased?"

"She must have capered after I had paid my respects to her."

"Danced a reel," she said, trying to smile.

He stroked her hair gently. "You'd never make a better match, Margaery. And he will be a kind and generous husband to you."

"Loving?" she asked.

He looked away, embarrassed. They had both heard the stories. "He will get a son on you - a dozen sons if father and grandmother have their way. He will be tender," he answered. "And tenderness tastes sweeter than love."

"How so?"

He smiled. "Think of King Aerys the- oh, blast, I forget his number."

" _Number_?" she giggled.

"Some damned Targaryen or the other," he said easily. "His idea of love was to immolate his queen, on a couch of steel. He would be the dragon, she the phoenix. Yes, tenderness suits most women better than love." He caught her hands and looked steadily into her eyes. "He will be charming. He will ask for your hand tomorrow night and you will be wedded and bedded within the fortnight and then-"

"You will march off to war." Her voice was hollow and flat. "Again."

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "Again," he acknowledged. "Again and again and as many times as is needed till Queen Margaery's son can ascend a peaceful throne."

"Queen Margaery," she said softly. It sounded strange to her ears, absurd. "Will they truly call me Queen Margaery?"

"On bended knee," a voice behind her replied. They turned to see their grandmother, her guards, Left and Right, shadowing her at a discreet distance. "Jape has crowned me the Queen of Thorns. The sword will crown you a queen, Margaery. The Queen of Roses."

* * *

_"It seems to me we should take a lesson from the late Lord Renly. We can win the Tyrell alliance as he did. With a marriage."_

**A Clash of Kings**

* * *

_The thought that one day he may see his grandson with his arse on the Iron Throne makes Mace puff up like . . . now, what do you call it? Margaery, you're clever, be a dear and tell your poor old half-daft grandmother the name of that queer fish from the Summer Isles that puffs up to ten times its own size when you poke it."_

_"They call them puff fish, Grandmother."_

_"Of course they do. Summer Islanders have no imagination. My son ought to take the puff fish for his sigil, if truth be told. He could put a crown on it, the way the Baratheons do their stag, mayhap that would make him happy. We should have stayed well out of all this bloody foolishness if you ask me, but once the cow's been milked there's no squirting the cream back up her udder. After Lord Puff Fish put that crown on Renly's head, we were into the pudding up to our knees, so here we are to see things through."_

**A Storm of Swords**

* * *

_Joffrey had met his new bride-to-be at the King's Gate to welcome her to the city, and they rode side by side_ _through cheering crowds, Joff glittering in gilded armor and the Tyrell girl splendid in green with a cloak of_ _autumn flowers blowing from her shoulders. She was sixteen, brown-haired and brown-eyed, slender and_ _beautiful. The people called out her name as she passed, held up their children for her blessing, and scattered_ _flowers under the hooves of her horse. Her mother and grandmother followed close behind, riding in a tall_ _wheelhouse whose sides were carved into the shape of a hundred twining roses, every one gilded and shining._

**A Storm of Swords**

* * *

_Ser Dontos fumbled in his_ _pouch and drew out a silvery spiderweb, dangling it between his thick fingers. It was a hair net of fine-spun silver,_ _the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Sansa took it in her_ _fingers. Small gems were set wherever two strands crossed, so dark they drank the moonlight. "What stones are_ _these?"_  
 _"Black amethysts from Asshai. The rarest kind, a deep true purple by daylight."_  
 _"It's very lovely," Sansa said, thinking,_ It is a ship I need, not a net for my hair _._  
 _"Lovelier than you know, sweet child. It's magic, you see. It's justice you hold. It's vengeance for your father."_ _Dontos leaned close and kissed her again. "It's_ home _."_

**A Clash of Kings** _  
_

* * *

Swathes of fabric, in all the colours of the rainbow, draped the couches of her lady mother's boudoir. Maids and seamstresses held them up in the sunlight, against the windows, so that their colour would shimmer truer. Coloured silks swirled and floated in the air, like dancers' scarves, and twined about the marble columns.

A gown was to be made for her, when she rode in state at King's Landing to be presented to her betrothed. King Joffrey, the First of his Name, to be wed to the virgin Rose of Highgarden, Margaery Tyrell.

"Not white," Lady Alerie announced finally, decisively. "No, not white - it is virginal to be sure, but then we'll swathe you enough in white to make a wedding cake at the ceremony... and white always seems to wash you out a trifle. No, not white." Somehow, somewhere Lady Alerie had grown a spine. She now dared to speak of her daughter's gowns in the presence of her mother-in-law.

"Pink?" Merry suggested. She turned a fond smile on Margaery. "She looks radiant in pink - a full-blown-"

"If you say rose one more time, I shall scream."

"-Carnation," Lady Taena said. "Will that do, my sweet queen?"

Margaery resented Taena's presence. She was a viper-tongued Myrish slut. She would be difficult to control.

"Green," her lady mother suggested, face brightening. "A compromise between beauty and symbolism - green samite, yes that should be the thing. Fresh and fertile."

"A cloak of autumn flowers blowing about her," Garlan's wife, Leonette said. "We have half-bought the city with Margaery's dower. Her beauty shall buy the hearts of the smallfolk."

"What shade?" Alerie asked. "Dark or light or something..."

They gaggled like a flock of geese. Margaery, the widow-bride, drifted over to her grandmother. It was a wonder that the crochety old dame had not put in her word yet. It was unlike her to display such reticence. She was fidgeting with a delicate silver hairnet. It was beautiful, seeming to be fashioned of amethysts woven into spun starlight.

"Margaery, child, try this on," Lady Olenna said, as she approached. She helped bundle the girl's thick dark hair into the net and then tsked, looking disapproving. "Doesn't suit. Take it off."

"Hmm?" She had assumed it was a wedding present for her. It was really rather a pretty thing.

"You're too dark to carry it off... no, your hair would need a bit of spice. Something redder, auburn perhaps." She was talking to herself now. "Better for that, perhaps."

"And once you thought my hair too light," Margaery said lightly. "Last year, when you were playing at passing me off as a reborn Lyanna Stark."

"Last year we needed a Stark girl to take King Robert's fancy." Her grandmother pinched her cheeks. "Now we only need a well-grown, beddable girl, so you may wear your beauty as you please."

"So who is the hairnet for?"

Her grandmother smiled mysteriously. "For a very, very lovely young bride. And yes, before you ask, you vain child, she's said to be lovelier and younger than you."

Margaery's curiousity was piqued but she said nothing. Her grandmother liked her to unravel mysteries. It was her apprenticeship in courtly intrigue. Now she was only a pawn but her grandmother would expect her to be a player in time - was training her in the art, in fact.

Lady Olenna snapped her fingers and told the maid who came scurrying forwards, "Take this thing to Lord Baelish with my compliments. Tell him I had my personal silversmith work day and night to have it ready on time."

By the time the maid had bobbed her curtsey and left, Margaery had hit upon the answer. "Sansa Stark," she announced, with triumph. "Younger than me. As beautiful as a little doll, Lord Baelish told us - King Joffrey's pretty plaything. A bride soon - you mean to marry her off to Willas before the Lannisters can snatch her for themselves." She frowned, puzzled. "But why send the hairnet to Lord Baelish? Wouldn't it have been better if we gifted it to her when we receive her at King's Landing? What better way to win a little girl's trust than by a few sweet words and trinkets?"

Lady Olenna smiled, pleased. "Clever child," she said, patting her hand. "But not quite clever enough."

* * *

_"The old woman is not boring, though, I'll grant her that. A fearsome old harridan, and not near as frail as she_ _pretends. When I came to Highgarden to dicker for Margaery's hand, she let her lord son bluster while she asked_ _pointed questions about Joffrey's nature. I praised him to the skies, to be sure . . . whilst my men spread_ _disturbing tales amongst Lord Tyrell's servants. That is how the game is played._

_"I also planted the notion of Ser Loras taking the white. Not that I suggested it, that would have been too_ _crude. But men in my party supplied grisly tales about how the mob had killed Ser Preston Greenfield and raped_ _the Lady Lollys, and slipped a few silvers to Lord Tyrell's army of singers to sing of Ryam Redwyne, Serwyn of_ _the Mirror Shield, and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. A harp can be as dangerous as a sword, in the right_ _hands._ "

_Mace Tyrell actually thought it was his own idea to make Ser Loras's inclusion in the Kingsguard part of the_ _marriage contract. Who better to protect his daughter than her splendid knightly brother? And it relieved him of_ _the difficult task of trying to find lands and a bride for a third son, never easy, and doubly difficult in Ser Loras's_ _case._

_Be that as it may. Lady Olenna was not about to let Joff harm her precious darling granddaughter, but unlike_ _her son she also realized that under all his flowers and finery, Ser Loras is as hot-tempered as Jaime Lannister._ _Toss Joffrey, Margaery, and Loras in a pot, and you've got the makings for kingslayer stew. The old woman_ _understood something else as well. Her son was determined to make Margaery a queen, and for that he needed_ _a king . . . but he did not need Joffrey. We shall have another wedding soon, wait and see. Margaery will marry_ _Tommen. She'll keep her queenly crown and her maidenhead, neither of which she especially wants, but what_ _does that matter? The great western alliance will be preserved . . . for a time, at least."_

**A Storm of Swords**

* * *

"Will the Baratheons take me again?" she asked simply. "Twice a widow to two Baratheon kings. They might consider me an ill-luck charm."

Her grandmother took her hands. "It's the Lannisters we need consider, not the Baratheons. And they will be obliged to take you."

Margaery nodded and turned to stare out of the window. "She loved him," she murmured, thinking about Cersei. "That monster. She loved him."

"Monsters both of them," her grandmother returned. "Even beasts of the wild love their whelps, child. And I've told you how to hunt down beasts - you aren't afraid, are you?"

Margaery shook her head. "No... just surprised. Just..." she frowned. _You did it. You had him killed. But why?_

Her grandmother read her mind - as always. "Be grateful," she said, a little sharply. "Joffrey was wild, through and through. He'd have torn you apart between those sharp lion's claws as King Aerys did Queen Rhaella."

"I had Loras."

Lady Olenna snorted. "Kingsguard are appointed to defend the King and the Queen," she said. "In that order. Be grateful that we took care of him - Tommem is but a child, and a gentle one at that. He will adore you."

Margaery nodded. "So, we change our tactics once again," she said, smiling. "From kisses to kittens. From caresses to sweetmeats." She thinks about the different roles they have wanted her to play, for the four kings they wanted to wed her to. They wanted her to be Lyanna Stark, the girl the dragon had stolen away. Renly had wanted a woman who reminded him of Loras, but who could bear a son and heir in minimal time. The Lannisters wanted the Tyrell heiress, Joffrey had wanted a beddable bride. And Tommem... Tommem just wanted a friend.

She smiled. Perhaps it was for the best.


End file.
